No Sympathy for the DevilBy: Tammy Bruce FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, August 27, 2003

When pedophile ex-priest John Geoghan was murdered in prison, a friend of mine called and said, “Isn’t it awful?” I was shocked at the question. Awful? No, it wasn’t awful. I didn’t feel sorry at all. I thought it was appropriate and was actually pleased.

My friend wasn’t the only one experiencing a moment of moral stupefaction. The Boston archdiocese (not exactly the bulwark of ever having done the right thing) was “saddened” for Geoghan and his family. CNN’s Paula Zahn reported on the murder with the kind of hand-wringing concern reserved for tragedies. “How could this have happened?” was the refrain of virtually all the news coverage.

Are we to feel sorry and sad for all who die horrible deaths? Here’s a simple answer: No. When it comes to right and wrong, some people deserve to die in awful ways—especially those who target and set out to destroy children to feed their own depravity. Geoghan is believed responsible for the molestation of over 150 children. He was also one of the few actual pedophiles in the Catholic Church scandal. He was someone who did not deserve to die in his sleep.

As I reported in my book, The Death of Right and Wrong, 4 out of 5 of those victimized by priests were male, 85 percent of whom were between the ages of 14 and 17, which is not pedophilia—it’s called gay men attracted to and molesting adolescent boys. Geoghan, however, was different. He was a true pedophile with the majority of his victims under the age of 12.

The fact that monsters like Geoghan exist is one reason why I’m for the death penalty. He is also the best example of why child molestation should be a capital offense. So far, the justice system reports that child molesters have a 100 percent recidivism rate. That means when they get out they will strike again. There is no rehabilitation for them.

Considering the media’s coverage of the situation, there seems to be some new politically correct rule that we’re all supposed to feign shock and sadness when a child molester gets murdered. Do we think it is somehow more genteel, more civilized, to be equally upset at the dispatch of a monster as we would of a decent person?

I hope not. Frankly, the uncivilized thing is to view the death of a destroyer of children with any sympathy.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper exemplified how inane the news media is when it comes to a moral standard. In covering the murder, Cooper, the cute but stunningly vacant anchor, was interviewing a prison expert about the Geoghan murder. Cooper’s tone was one of indignation and shock as he kept repeating “How could this have happened! Why couldn’t they protect him!” He then asked a question that would be inexplicable in any world other than one plunging into a moral abyss—“Why do prisoners hate child molesters so much?”

Gee, let me think. Fortunately, the man expected to answer such a profound and complex question had the answer. He looked a little stunned and then said “Well, probably for the same reasons the rest of society does.” In fact, 80 percent of those incarcerated also report having been abused as children. That little factoid doesn’t work in the favor of the child molester either.

Soon, the news headline banner was that the authorities were reporting the murder as a “hate crime.” Uh, yeah. It sure was obvious that Geoghan’s killer hated him, as killers do their victims. But in this instance the murderer is a member of the Aryan Nation and happens to hate the protected classes of the left. So Geoghan, the pedophile monster, gets the further sympathetic wrappingas a victim of another senseless act of “hate.”

I’m certainly not suggesting that a murdering thug racist in prison deserves our sympathy either, but let’s get real. All people in prison are there for a reason. They hated someone enough (for whatever reason) that they murdered. Or they raped. They somehow injured someone else because all they could think about was themselves. Self-control was out the window. Narcissism ruled the day. Personal responsibility was too complicated a concept to influence their choices.

People do choose to become criminals. Fortunately, most Americans, regardless of how difficult their lives, do not take that path.

Yes, the man who killed Geoghan was a murderer, a classic racist, and a freak. But I refuse to feel sorry for a molester of children because he finally found himself with his peers and reaped the result.

I don’t see the murder of Geoghan as a tragedy at all. A convicted killer killed again. A molester of children died in hell. Frankly, the major failing is that we, as society, have subjected victims to the charade of imprisoning their molesters as though they will be rehabilitated, only to release them to strike again. There is no justice in that—it is a sloppy lie to society and simply delays a continuation of the destruction of souls.

Molesters do deserve to die, but with our sanction and within the structure and responsibility of the system. It’s called the Death Penalty. And we should have the courage to carry it out with approval and honesty. Instead, society and the even the justice system snickers and shares satisfied winks of understanding when it comes to the fate that awaits child molesters in prison.

Let’s stop being hypocrites and condemn this personification of evilby making it a capital offense. Let’s finally send a message to children that we care more about them than paying homage to the malignant narcissists of the Left who want us all to wallow in their pit of political correctness and sympathy for the devil.

Most of all, let’s stop lying to ourselves, and accept the rightness and moral clarity of the death penalty in general, and demand it for child molesters specifically.

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